Friday, July 31, 2009

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is discussing with U.S. health officials the possibility of putting vaccination sites at some of its stores for an H1N1 swine flu inoculation campaign this fall, a company official said on Thursday.

Federal officials met with Wal-Mart executives on Wednesday in Arkansas to discuss the issue, Dr. John Agwunobi, president of health and wellness for Wal-Mart U.S., told public health leaders at a conference in Orlando.

"We are in discussions with CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and others in local and state departments to see what role we might play," Agwunobi said. "It might be we are a site. It may be help with logistics and with supply chain."

Agwunobi said 140 million people walk through the doors of its 4,000 U.S. stores each week.

U.S. health advisers have said about half the U.S. population should be vaccinated against H1N1 influenza. Up to 160 million doses of flu vaccine will be available for the start of the campaign in mid-October.

The H1N1 swine flu, characterized by mild symptoms in most patients, is now so widespread that the World Health Organization has stopped counting cases.

Speaking at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) annual conference, Agwunobi also said Wal-Mart is planning to be a site this fall for seasonal flu vaccinations, administered by a third-party, at stores in most parts of the country.

A New York judge presiding over a multi-million dollar insurance case has dismissed the claim that negligent design or construction of WTC Building 7 contributed to its collapse, and in doing so has destroyed a key justification cited by debunkers in claiming that WTC 7 was not deliberately imploded.

Though the ruling by no means advocates any factor other than fire and debris from the twin towers as the cause of the collapse of Building 7, it does reject the premise that the diesel tanks stored in the structure contributed to the building’s destruction.

According to a report by James Glanz which was published in the New York Times on September 11, 2002 concerning diesel tanks stored in WTC 7, “The tanks contained more than 40,000 gallons of fuel to provide backup power for the city’s emergency command center, a Secret Service office and other tenants. A 6,000-gallon tank for the command center, which was on the 23rd floor, was mounted 15 feet off the ground near an elevator bank. It was cited as unsafe by Fire Department officials in 1998 and 1999, but the Port Authority has asserted that the tank and the structure met the city’s fire code and posed no special danger.”

Debunkers have seized upon the diesel tanks as a reason for the collapse of WTC 7 , the only steel-framed building in history to collapse from fire damage alone, considering it was not hit by a plane on 9/11. Despite the fact that diesel tanks being in the building do not explain its 7 second free fall collapse into its own footprint, debunkers have still clung to the issue as a sacred cow with which to try and uphold the official story.

However, a New York judge presiding over a 7-year long insurance case concerning Consolidated Edison has dismissed the claim that the tanks or faulty construction of the building contributed to the collapse.

Consolidated Edison and five of its insurers filed a $314.5 million lawsuit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in September 2002, charging that the tanks were improperly designed and maintained. The suit claimed that the tanks fed the fires that brought down WTC 7 and thus were a major contributor to its collapse which destroyed the New York utility’s substation on 9/11.

However, Judge Alvin Hellerstein on Monday ordered the Port Authority to pay Con Ed a total of $37,580,750, just over one tenth of the figure they originally sought, or around e $277 million less than the amount originally sued for.

Con Ed have only received one tenth the sum they initially claimed because the judge dismissed three of the four counts, counts one and two, the tort complaints of the second amended complaint, and count four, the reimbursement claims.

The first tort claim was that “the Port Authority negligently designed, constructed, and maintained 7WTC, causing the tower to collapse and destroy the substation.”

The second tort claim was that “the Port Authority violated New York State and New York City fire and safety standards in designing, constructing, and maintaining 7WTC.”

Both claims were rejected by Judge Hellerstein, who dismissed Con Ed’s claim that the Port Authority was negligent in the collapse of WTC 7 because of a “connection with the construction or maintenance” of the building.

Con Ed’s claim that the damage to its substation resulted from the Port Authority’s “negligent design, approval, inspection, installation, maintenance, operation, conduct and control of 7 World Trade Center . . . and the diesel fuel tanks therein,” was labeled “redundant and not independently viable” by the Judge.

In count four, Con Ed claimed that the following factors contributed to the collapse of WTC 7.

1) inadequate fireproofing; 2) inadequate firestopping; 3) inadequate attachments between steel connections, beams, girders, and columns; 4) violation of New York City building code as to bracing of columns; 5) inadequate robustness, redundancy, and ductility; 6) failure to investigate and improve 7WTC after the 1993 bombing of Tower One; and 7) improper maximization of office space.

Judge Hellerstein dismissed count four in its entirety because, “There is no genuine issue of material fact as to whether these allegations, and proofs supporting them, would suffice to establish Con Edison’s claims.”

It is important to stress that Judge Hellerstein’s rejection of these counts is not a rejection of the premise that fire and debris from the twin towers was responsible for the collapse of Building 7, indeed that factor is later highlighted in the briefing as the cause of the collapse in the judge’s opinion, but Hellerstein’s ruling that the design or maintenance of the building did not contribute to its collapse is still key.

As we have previously reported, claims that WTC 7 was shoddily constructed and therefore more vulnerable to collapse are contradicted by the fact that the building was intentionally designed to allow large portions of floors to be permanently removed without weakening the structural integrity of the building.

In 1989, following their lease of the building from owner Larry Silverstein, brokerage firm Salomon Brothers spent $200 million dollars on structurally reinforcing the building, allowing “enough redundancy to allow entire portions of floors to be removed without affecting the building’s structural integrity.”

According to a New York Times report, “MORE than 375 tons of steel – requiring 12 miles of welding – (was) installed to reinforce floors for Salomon’s extra equipment.”

What this amounted to, as the Times pointed out, was that WTC7, specifically designed to be deconstructed and altered, became “a building within a building”. An extraordinary adaptable and highly reinforced structure for the modern business age.

Of course, the evidence to indicate WTC 7 was deliberately imploded is voluminous and, though not the scope of this article, is covered in another report on this story by Jerry Mazza which can be read below.

Doubt the government plans to impose martial law and round up dissidents and other malcontents? Well, the Army National Guard is advertising for qualified personnel to work as Corrections Officers and Internment/Resettlement Specialists.

“As an Internment/Resettlement Specialist for the Army National Guard, you will ensure the smooth running of military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility, similar to those duties conducted by civilian Corrections Officers,” a classified ad posted on the web states. “This will require you to know proper procedures and military law; and have the ability to think quickly in high-stress situations. Specific duties may include assisting with supervision and management operations; providing facility security; providing custody, control, supervision, and escort; and counseling individual prisoners in rehabilitative programs.”

The term “rehabilitative programs” is key. Glenn Beck and the corporate media may attempt to discredit the fact there are FEMA camps, but military documents demonstrate the government plans to herd people into internment camps. Army Regulation 210-35, entitled “Civilian Inmate Labor Program,” provides “guidance for establishing and managing civilian inmate labor programs on Army installations. It provides guidance on establishing prison camps on Army installations.”

In Mao’s China, the government established a sprawling system of administrative detention centers — known as Laogai — designed to reeducate dissidents and other social misfits through forced slave labor. In the Soviet Union under Stalin, a network of gulags — a Russian acronym for The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies — were established, primarily for political prisoners and as a mechanism for repressing political opposition to the Soviet state.

Rex 84 was created in the United States for basically the same reason. “The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan; otherwise known as a continuity of government plan), indicates that FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies, along with other NATO nations, conducted a civil readiness exercise during April 5-13, 1984. It was conducted in coordination and simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night Train 84, a worldwide military command post exercise (including Continental U.S. Forces or CONUS) based on multi-emergency scenarios operating both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84 Bravo, FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans Administration through a gaming exercise to test military assistance in civil defense,” writes Diana Reynolds. “The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial law.”

Rex 84 falls under master military contingency plan, Operation Garden Plot, allegedly developed in response to the civil disorders of the 1960s and now under the control of the U.S. Northern Command. Garden Plot was last activated as Noble Eagle following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Under National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20, or called simply “Executive Directive 51″ for short), signed by George W. Bush on May 4, 2007, the government has the authority to declare a national emergency and impose martial law. NSPD 51 grants extraordinary police state powers to the White House and Homeland Security, presumably including detention of a large number of people as established under Rex 84 and other military programs.

On July 30, CNN reported that the U.S. military is gearing up to get involved in the H1N1 swine flu outbreak promised to strike later this year. “The U.S. military wants to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials,” a proposal that is currently on the desk of Sec. Def. Robert Gates, according to CNN. “As a first step, Gates is being asked to sign a so-called ‘execution order’ that would authorize the military to begin to conduct the detailed planning to execute the proposed plan.”

It looks like the Army National Guard is gearing up to staff camps and “execute the proposed plan” of forcibly vaccinating the public and rounding up and hauling off those who refuse to be injected with a soft kill eugenics weapon as dangerous enemies of the state who need to be interned in forced labor and re-education camps.

Trilateral Member Hormats nominated to State Department Patrick WoodThe August ReviewJuly 31, 2009

On July 18, 2009, another Trilateral Commission member has been nominated to a strategic post in the Obama administration, bringing the total number of Obama’s Trilateral appointees to twelve.

Robert Hormats, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, has been nominated by President Obama to be an Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agriculture. His Senate confirmation is expected to proceed without incident.

Hormats will join five other Trilateral Commission members in the Department of State: Kurt Campbell, James Steinberg, Richard Hass, Dennis Ross and Richard Holbrooke. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not a member, but her husband, Bill Clinton, was.

It is expected that Hormats will be the lead diplomat in economic negotiations with China and India. Goldman Sachs’ commercial relationship with China and India is huge, and has been instrumental in turning both countries into world economic powers.

The following is Hormats’ biography according to LeadingAuthorities:

“Robert D. Hormats is Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (International) and Managing Director of Goldman, Sachs & Co. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1982. Robert Hormats served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs from 1981 to 1982, Ambassador and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative from 1979 to 1981, and as Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State from 1977 to 1979. He served as a Senior Staff Member for International Economic Affairs on the National Security Council from 1969 to 1977 during which time he was Senior Economic Advisor to Dr. Henry Kissinger, General Brent Scowcroft and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Mr. Hormats was a recipient of the French Legion of Honor in 1982 and Arthur Fleming Award in 1974.

Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for US until 9/11 Against All EnemiesJuly 31, 2009

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman.

In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained ‘intimate relations’ with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, “all the way until that day of September 11.”

These ‘intimate relations’ included using Bin Laden for ‘operations’ in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These ‘operations’ involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict,” that is, fighting ‘enemies’ via proxies.

As Sibel has previously described, and as she reiterates in this latest interview, this process involved using Turkey (with assistance from ‘actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’) as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army.

Control of Central Asia

The goals of the American ’statesmen’ directing these activities included control of Central Asia’s vast energy supplies and new markets for military products.

The Americans had a problem, though. They needed to keep their fingerprints off these operations to avoid a) popular revolt in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and b) serious repercussions from China and Russia. They found an ingenious solution: Use their puppet-state Turkey as a proxy, and appeal to both pan-Turkic and pan-Islam sensibilities.

Turkey, a NATO ally, has a lot more credibility in the region than the US and, with the history of the Ottoman Empire, could appeal to pan-Turkic dreams of a wider sphere of influence. The majority of the Central Asian population shares the same heritage, language and religion as the Turks.

In turn, the Turks used the Taliban and al Qaeda, appealing to their dreams of a pan-Islamic caliphate (Presumably. Or maybe the Turks/US just paid very well.)

According to Sibel:

This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

Uighurs

Sibel was recently asked to write about the recent situation with the Uighurs in Xinjiang, but she declined, apart from saying that “our fingerprint is all over it.”

Of course, Sibel isn’t the first or only person to recognize any of this. Eric Margolis, one of the best reporters in the West on matters of Central Asia, stated that the Uighurs in the training camps in Afghanistan up to 2001:

“were being trained by Bin Laden to go and fight the communist Chinese in Xinjiang, and this was not only with the knowledge, but with the support of the CIA, because they thought they might use them if war ever broke out with China.”

And also that:

“Afghanistan was not a hotbed of terrorism, these were commando groups, guerrilla groups, being trained for specific purposes in Central Asia.”

In a separate interview, Margolis said:

“That illustrates Henry Kissinger’s bon mot that the only thing more dangerous than being America’s enemy is being an ally, because these people were paid by the CIA, they were armed by the US, these Chinese Muslims from Xinjiang, the most-Western province.

The CIA was going to use them in the event of a war with China, or just to raise hell there, and they were trained and supported out of Afghanistan, some of them with Osama Bin Laden’s collaboration. The Americans were up to their ears with this.”

Rogues Gallery

Last year, Sibel came up with a brilliant idea to expose some of the criminal activity that she is forbidden to speak about: she published eighteen photos, titled “Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery,” of people involved the operations that she has been trying to expose. One of those people is Anwar Yusuf Turani, the so-called ‘President-in-exile’ of East Turkistan (Xinjiang). This so-called ‘government-in-exile’ was ‘established‘ on Capitol Hill in September, 2004, drawing a sharp rebuke from China.

Also featured in Sibel’s Rogues Gallery was ‘former’ spook Graham Fuller, who was instrumental in the establishment of Turani’s ‘government-in-exile’ of East Turkistan. Fuller has written extensively on Xinjiang, and his “ Xinjiang Project” for Rand Corp is apparently the blueprint for Turani’s government-in-exile. Sibel has openly stated her contempt for Mr. Fuller.

Susurluk

The Turkish establishment has a long history of mingling matters of state with terrorism, drug trafficking and other criminal activity, best exemplified by the 1996Susurluk incident which exposed the so-called Deep State.

Sibel states that “a few main Susurluk actors also ended up in Chicago where they centered ‘certain’ aspects of their operations (Especially East Turkistan-Uighurs).”

One of the main Deep State actors, Mehmet Eymur, former Chief of Counter-Terrorism for Turkey’s intelligence agency, the MIT, features in Sibel’s Rogues Gallery. Eymur was given exile in the US. Another member of Sibel’s gallery, Marc Grossman was Ambassador to Turkey at the time that the Susurluk incident exposed the Deep State. He was recalled shortly after, prior to the end of his assignment, as was Grossman’s underling, Major Douglas Dickerson, who later tried to recruit Sibel into the spying ring.

The modus operandi of the Susurluk gang is the same as the activities that Sibel describes as taking place in Central Asia, the only difference is that this activity was exposed in Turkey a decade ago, whereas the organs of the state in the US, including the corporate media, have successfully suppressed this story.

Chechnya, Albania & Kosovo

Central Asia is not the only place where American foreign policy makers have shared interests with Bin Laden. Consider the war in Chechnya. As I documented here, Richard Perle and Stephen Solarz (both in Sibel’s gallery) joined other leading neocon luminaries such as Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, and Morton Abramowitz in a group called the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC). For his part, Bin Laden donated $25 million to the cause, as well as numerous fighters, and technical expertise, establishing training camps.

US interests also converged with those of al-Qaeda in Kosovo and Albania.

Of course, it is not uncommon for circumstances to arise where ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ On the other hand, in a transparent democracy, we expect a full accounting of the circumstances leading up to a tragic event like 9/11. The 9/11 Commission was supposed to provide exactly that.

State Secrets

Sibel has famously been dubbed the most gagged woman in America, having the State Secrets Privilege imposed on her twice. Her 3.5 hour testimony to the 9/11 Commission has been entirely suppressed, reduced to a single footnote which refers readers to her classified testimony.

In the interview, she says that the information that was classified in her case specifically identifies that the US was using Bin Laden and the Taliban in Central Asia, including Xinjiang. In the interview, Sibel reiterates that when invoking the gag orders, the US government claims that it is protecting ” ’sensitive diplomatic relations,’ protecting Turkey, protecting Israel, protecting Pakistan, protecting Saudi Arabia…” This is no doubt partially true, but it is also true that they are protecting themselves too, and it is a crime in the US to use classification and secrecy to cover up crimes.

As Sibel says in the interview:

I have information about things that our government has lied to us about… those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.

Summary

The bombshell here is obviously that certain people in the US were using Bin Laden up to September 11, 2001.

It is important to understand why: the US outsourced terror operations to al Qaeda and the Taliban for many years, promoting the Islamization of Central Asia in an attempt to personally profit off military sales as well as oil and gas concessions.

The silence by the US government on these matters is deafening. So, too, is the blowback.

NEW DELHI, July 30 (Reuters) - U.S.-based Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) says it will speed up delivery of six C-130J military planes to India and is negotiating for sale of six more in a deal potentially worth $1.1 billion, a senior official said.

Lockheed, one of the world's largest defence companies, last year sold six C-130J military transport planes for about $1.1 billion, India's biggest arms deal ever with the United States.

"We will start delivering the planes from the first quarter of 2011 and work is speeding at the moment to meet deadlines," Jack Giese, a senior manager at Lockheed Martin, told Reuters on Thursday.

"The current agreement with the Indian Air Force for six C-130J aircraft has an option for another six and we are holding talks at the moment."

A defence pact agreed with the U.S. last week allowing U.S. inspectors to check all defence equipment sold to India periodically, has paved the way for companies like Lockheed to eye the growing Indian defence market.

India is one of the world's biggest arms importers, and its government plans to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years to upgrade its largely Soviet-era arsenal to counter potential threats from Pakistan and China.

Lockheed is aiming for deals with India worth $15 billion in the next five years and is focusing on winning contracts for fighter aircraft, military transport aircraft, naval helicopters and missiles. [ID:nDEL425131]

Lockheed and Boeing (BA.N) are two big U.S. companies trying to enter the Indian market, but New Delhi's reluctance to sign the defence pact, allowing U.S. inspectors to examine defence equipment sold to other countries was delaying new deals.

"It is a landmark agreement and Lockheed is looking forward to a long-term partnership with India," Giese, who is visiting India, said referring to the pact signed last week.

Lockheed is also gearing up for field trials in August to win a $10.4 billion contract to supply 126 F-16 fighter aircraft to India [ID:nDEL462408].

Boeing's (BA.N) F/A-18 Super Hornet, France's Dassault Rafale, Russia's MiG-35, Sweden's Saab (SAABb.ST) JAS-39 Gripen and the Eurofighter Typhoon, produced by a consortium of European companies, are the other companies in the race.

"We are very excited and ready since April for the trials to start and show what the F-16 can do," Giese added. (Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Sanjeev Miglani)

Brazil, Chile and Spain challenged the United States' decision to use and expand military bases in Colombia, saying they feared the move could heighten simmering tensions in Latin America.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Michelle Bachelet of Chile said in Sao Paulo they would put the issue before an August 10 meeting of a nascent South American Defence Council in Ecuador.

Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, and his Brazilian counterpart, Celso Amorim, simultaneously told reporters in Brasilia that they would demand explanations from Washington over the bases.

The Colombian government's announcement July 15 that three of its military air bases were to be used by the United States as part of joint anti-drug operations has ignited concerns and anger among Colombia's neighbours.

Venezuela and its ally Ecuador have warned the move could aggravate already deep tensions with Colombia.

The two almost went to war last year against Colombia over a raid its army made into Ecuador to destroy a FARC rebel camp.

Venezuelan's fiercely anti-US president, Hugo Chavez, said he viewed the bases as sign a "Yankee military force" was preparing to invade his country from Colombia.

Chavez this week signed deals with Russia reinforcing military ties that have already seen him acquire new tanks, combat helicopters and fighter jets.

He also on Tuesday froze diplomatic links to Colombia over allegations from Bogota that weapons Venezuela bought from Sweden in the 1980s ended up in the hands of the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

A cancerous conspiracy to poison your faith in organic foodBy Joanna BlythmanLast updated at 9:40 AM on 31st July 2009

Despite its obvious benefits for our health and for the environment, organic food continues to be denigrated by the political and corporate establishment in Britain.

The food industry, in alliance with pharmaceutical and big biotechnology companies, has waged a long, often cynical campaign to convince the public that mass-produced, chemically-assisted and intensively-farmed products are just as good as organic foods, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

The latest assault in this propaganda exercise comes from the Food Standards Agency, the government's so-called independent watchdog, which has just published a report claiming that there is no nutritional benefit to be gained from eating organic produce.

Those forces bent on promoting GM crops and industrialised production, would have been delighted by the widespread media coverage of the Agency's report, portraying enthusiasm for organic foods as little more than a fad among neurotic consumers that would pass once the public is given the correct information.

But what is truly misguided is not the increasing popularity of organic goods, but the Food Standards Agency's determination to halt this trend and instead promote genetic modification.

The new report from the FSA highlights this. For all the publicity it has attracted, the document does not contain any new material.

In fact, it is just an analysis of existing research carried out by other bodies. Moreover, the organisation that conducted this second-hand study, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is not renowned as a leading centre in this field.

Indeed, there is far more significant work currently being done on organic foods by several other bodies, some of it funded by the European Union, though the FSA has chosen to ignore it.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the FSA has decided to give such loud backing to this report because it can bend the findings to suit its political, pro-GM, anti-organic agenda.

Ever since its creation in 2000, the Food Standards Agency has been biased against organic farming. The first chairman, Sir John Krebs, was supportive of the biotechnology lobby and only too keen to promote GM as the future of farming.

In fact, one early review of the FSA's work, by the Labour peer Baroness Brenda Dean, warned there was a risk of the Agency losing its 'objectivity' and 'rigour' in its support for GM crops and its opposition to organic production.

The departure of Sir John Krebs has not brought any change in policy, since the Agency is now largely run by plodding bureaucrats all too keen to follow the correct official corporate line.

Yet even in the context of the latest report from the FSA, the spin does not match the reality. For, contrary to all the hype this week, the Agency's own published research shows that organic foods are clearly far better for the consumer even just in nutritional terms.

According to the FSA's findings, organic vegetables contain 53.6 per cent more betacarotene - which helps combat cancer and heart disease - than non-organic ones.

Similarly, organic food has 11.3 per cent more zinc, 38.4 per cent more flavonoids and 12.7 per cent more proteins.

In addition, an in-depth study by Newcastle University, far deeper than the one conducted by the FSA, has shown that organic produce contains 40 per cent more antioxidants than non-organic foods, research the FSA appears to have overlooked.

But the concentration solely on nutrition is to play into the hands of the anti-organic, pro-industrial lobby.

As most of the British public understands, but the FSA fails to acknowledge, the benefits of organic food go far beyond this narrow point.

The fact is that organic production is much better for personal health, food quality, the environment and the welfare of livestock.

Organic farming works in tune with the rhythms of the earth, gently harnessing the changing seasons, the natural cultivation of crops or the rearing of animals for our benefit.

In contrast, the vast biotech, processed food industry is at permanent war with nature, continually trying to manipulate, overwhelm and conquer. Organic farming is all about harmony, non-organic about chemicalised ascendancy.

The most obvious way this difference is manifested is in the use of pesticides on crops, banned from organic farming but eagerly promoted by big industry.

Fifty years ago, agro-chemicals hardly existed in British farming, but today they dominate this sector. But their rise has not been without justifiable concerns about the side-effects.

There is now a wealth of evidence to show that pesticides not only poison the soil and harm wildlife, but also promote cancer and a host of other diseases because of their toxicity.

This is, after all, only common sense. Anything that can kill insects is bound to have an impact when consumed by humans.

It has been shown that ordinary pears are sprayed with pesticides no fewer than 17 to 18 times during one seasonal growing cycle. A third of all the food we eat, and no less than half of all our fruit and vegetables, contains such chemicals.

The Government airily dismisses any worries about the risks, but this kind of complacency is based on old, outdated science.

As the agro-chemical industry tightens its grip, the worse the dangers become. Organic farming, however, offers the opportunity to eat without these dangers. All organic food is free from chemical residues and thus the health threats are much lower.

Even the most die-hard GM enthusiast would have to admit that organic meat, fruit and vegetables taste much better than the mass-produced fare turned out by major suppliers.

Non-organic produce is not just grown with chemicals, it is also filled with additives, colourings, flavourings, salt and water simply so it has an acceptable appearance to the consumer once it reaches the shelves.

Again, this battery of synthetic additives which appears in many processed foods, ready meals and take-aways has a detrimental effect on our health, something that is avoided with organic produce.

Intensive farming also has a brutal impact on the well-being of animals, which in turn undermines both the quality of meat and our own health.

Organic poultry, eggs and bacon not only taste much better, but they have also not been pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, like industrialised produce.

Putting pigs and hens in battery cages inside vast hangars is a sure recipe for the spread of disease, akin to locking up a large group of children in an overheated, overcrowded nursery.

In this environment, the only way to combat germs is to dish out the antibiotics, but there are now scientific concerns that the overuse of such chemicals is weakening resistance in animals and also reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics among humans.

Giving animals a decent life through organic, traditional husbandry is better for them - and for us. All the cheerleading for the agro-chemical giants cannot hide the fact that industrialised farming represents a cul-de-sac for mankind.

We cannot go on as we are, pumping chemicals into our livestock and into the earth. The future has to be organic.

If it has any genuine interest in nutrition, the Food Standards Agency would be supporting a shift away from intensification, not pushing for more of it.

The FSA was meant to be an organisation for improving our food. Now it is just getting in the way.

University Of Alabama Implements Mandatory Vaccination Program New students informed: No jabs, no enrollmentPaul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.comThursday, July 30, 2009

Another major school institution has implemented a mandatory vaccination policy that bars both new and current students who haven’t received the meningitis and MMR shots from enrolling for the coming academic year.

The University of Alabama recently sent out an e mail to all its students informing them that they had to provide proof of several different immunizations before they could register for their course.

Failure to provide such proof would mean the students would be forced to take the shots on campus at the Student Health Center – refusal to do so would prevent them from enrolling and could also lead to further judiciary punishment.

The e mail reads as follows;

All freshmen and all new students, regardless of classification, must have:

1) Proof of the meningitis vaccination (Manactra (preferred) or Menomune)2) If you were born after 1956, proof of two (2) measles containing vaccinations. One of these vaccines must be an MMR vaccination after 1980.3) Acceptable proof of tuberculosis screening within the last year.

This is a registration requirement, whether transfer or graduate.

If you are living off campus this is still a requirement. Please turn in proof of these immunizations and tuberculosis screening before moving into campus housing or the first day of class if living off campus. All vaccines and tuberculosis screening are available at the Student Health Center. Failure to submit your immunization and TB test requirement could slow down your moving into residence hall room.

The e mail also informs juniors and seniors already living on campus that they need to get a meningitis shot if they haven’t received one in the last four years, even though as the advisory admits, “This is NOT a regular childhood immunization and it was not a requirement when you entered the University of Alabama.”

“Failure of any student regardless of classification not meeting the immunization and tuberculosis screening requirement may result in a disruption in ability to register for classes and possible disciplinary action per Office for Judicial Affairs,” states the e mail.

The MMR vaccine has been linked to autism and inflammatory bowel disease and despite a UK government propaganda campaign to try and convince the public that it is safe, as well as an effort brainwash children, many parents have boycotted the jab in Britain.

Earlier this year, the Daily Mail highlighted the story of 5-year-old Melody Brook, who went from a bouncing and bubbly child to a virtual vegetable after she took the MMR vaccine.

The meningitis vaccine also provoked safety fears after 5,000 children suffered adverse reactions immediately after it was introduced in Britain.

As we have previously highlighted, there is no law in America, aside from those applying to medical workers, that says you or your child has to take any vaccine whatsoever, no matter what any executive order, requirement, mandate or policy dictates, there is no situation where you can go to prison for refusing a government vaccine under the U.S. constitution and the law of the land.

This was particularly prescient for the parents of more than 1600 children in Prince George’s County, Maryland, who in 2007 were told they could be put in jail for failing to get their kids vaccinated. Appearing on the Alex Jones Show, a state prosecutor involved in bringing potential criminal charges against the parents was forced to admit that there was no law that mandated parents to vaccinate their children.

The only way mandatory vaccinations can be enforced in this context is by removing privileges, as in the case with Alabama University preventing immunized students from registering, but many people would argue that education is not a privilege but a human right, and to deny a student enrollment because they refuse to have a needle jabbed in their arm is clearly discriminatory.

The only other way to implement mandatory vaccinations is of course by force, which is what many fear will happen in the event of a mass swine flu pandemic this fall which the government has already assured us is inevitable.

State health authorities have already confirmed that if the government were to announce a mandatory vaccination program, then there would be no exemptions whatsoever and the program could be carried out with the use of force if necessary.

As reported by CNS News earlier this month, a health-care reform bill approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee called The Affordable Health Choices Act, will fund the creation of state “intervention” teams that will carry out home visits in order to check that both children and adults have been vaccinated and also provide “provision of immunizations”.

Washington Post: Swine Flu Vaccine Will Contain Mercury Toxin linked to autism and neurological disorders to be included in shotsPaul Joseph WatsonPrison Planet.comThursday, July 30, 2009

The Washington Post confirmed today that the swine flu vaccine, which is set to be rolled out nationwide this fall in what some fear could ultimately become a mandatory vaccination program, will contain mercury, a toxin linked with autism and neurological disorders.

Claims by the CDC and the Institute of Medicine, following a whitewash study that ignored previously verified evidence, that thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, has no causal relationship to skyrocketing cases of autism have been soundly rejected by top doctors and scientists ever since.

Epidemiologist Tom Verstraeten and Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado, both concluded that thimerosal was responsible for the dramatic rise in cases of autism but their findings were dismissed by the CDC.

Cases of autism in the U.S. have increased by 1,500 per cent since 1991, which is when vaccines for children doubled, and the number of immunizations is only increasing. Just one in 2,500 children were diagnosed with autism before 1991, whereas one in 166 children now have the disease.

A peer reviewed study by Dr. Mark Geier which appeared in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons showed that the IOM research was flawed because it was largely based on a Danish study by Anders Peter Hviid, which did not account for the fact that American children have a much higher mercury burden than children in Denmark.

“At the high levels (of thimerosal exposure), it is undeniable there is a causal relationship, and we have gone to high levels. Their studies, therefore are not relevant, I am not saying they are wrong, although there are many criticisms of it. It is just not relative to the US situation,” said Geier.

Geier’s study concludes that there is an increase of neurodevelopment disorders following the use of thimerosal containing vaccines.

Dr. Rashid Buttar, who has pioneered a new treatment for autistic children that removes mercury from their bodies, said the Institute of Medicine’s conclusion that mercury does not cause autism demonstrates the “complete absence of any desire to discover scientific truth at the supposed highest levels of medical academia.”

“When 31 children recover from a devastating disease by a simple transdermal treatment that detoxifies metals, then common sense dictates that perhaps metals are involved,” states Dr. Bob Nash the chairman of the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology (ABCMT) in regard to Dr. Buttar’s treatment.

“In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal, suffered brain damage years later. Studies on thimerosal poisoning also describe tubular necrosis and nervous system injury, including obtundation, coma and death. As a result of these findings, Russia banned thimerosal from children’s vaccines in 1980. Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have also banned the preservative,” writes Dawn Prate.

Mercury is classified by The Department of Defense as a hazardous material that could cause death if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin, and the EPA is now limiting mercury emissions from factories because the toxin “can damage the brain and nervous system and is especially dangerous to fetuses and small children,” but according to the CDC it’s perfectly safe to inject into your child’s bloodstream.

Despite concerns about thimerosal and mercury, which have led to the preservative being reduced or removed from a large portion of vaccines over the last five years, thimerosal will be an ingredient of the swine flu vaccine which is set to arrive in the U.S. this September.

“Some of the vaccine will be stored in multi-dose vials containing thimerosal, an antibacterial additive that contains mercury,” reports the Washington Post today in an article about which groups will receive the swine flu vaccine first.

“There will also be single-dose syringes without thimerosal, a substance that some assert is harmful to children,” adds the article, without mentioning whether or not people who take the vaccine will get a choice or even be informed if it contains mercury.

Around 12,000 U.S. children will be used as guinea pigs for the experimental swine flu vaccine also known to contain the dangerous ingredient squalene, which has been directly linked with cases of Gulf War Syndrome and a host of other debilitating diseases.

Pharmaceutical companies can be assured that they won’t face reprisals for the many thousands of injuries and deaths that will inevitably occur as a result of exposing millions to mercury and squalene during a mass vaccination program, because the government has already acted to provide them with blanket immunity from lawsuits.

“Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius,” reported the Associated Press earlier this month.

GMO Scandal: The Long Term Effects of Genetically Modified Food on HumansScientific Tests Must Be Approved by Industry Firstby F. William EngdahlGlobal Research, July 29, 2009

One of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO plants around the world since the first commercial crops were released in the early 1990’s in the USA and Argentina has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long-term effects of a diet of GMO plants on humans or even rats. Now it has come to light the real reason. The GMO agribusiness companies like Monsanto, BASF, Pioneer, Syngenta and others prohibit independent research.

An editorial in the respected American scientific monthly magazine, Scientific American, August 2009 reveals the shocking and alarming reality behind the proliferation of GMO products throughout the food chain of the planet since 1994. There are no independent scientific studies published in any reputed scientific journal in the world for one simple reason. It is impossible to independently verify that GMO crops such as Monsanto Roundup Ready Soybeans or MON8110 GMO maize perform as the company claims, or that, as the company also claims, that they have no harmful side effects because the GMO companies forbid such tests!

That’s right. As a precondition to buy seeds, either to plant for crops or to use in research study, Monsanto and the gene giant companies must first sign an End User Agreement with the company. For the past decade, the period when the greatest proliferation of GMO seeds in agriculture has taken place, Monsanto, Pioneer (DuPont) and Syngenta require anyone buying their GMO seeds to sign an agreement that explicitly forbids that the seeds be used for any independent research. Scientists are prohibited from testing a seed to explore under what conditions it flourishes or even fails. They cannot compare any characteristics of the GMO seed with any other GMO or non-GMO seeds from another company. Most alarming, they are prohibited from examining whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended side-effects either in the environment or in animals or humans.

The only research which is permitted to be published in reputable scientific peer-reviewed journals are studies which have been pre-approved by Monsanto and the other industry GMO firms.

The entire process by which GMO seeds have been approved in the United States, beginning with the proclamation by then President George H.W. Bush in 1992, on request of Monsanto, that no special Government tests of safety for GMO seeds would be conducted because they were deemed by the President to be “substantially equivalent” to non-GMO seeds, has been riddled with special interest corruption. Former attorneys for Monsanto were appointed responsible in EPA and FDA for rules governing GMO seeds as but one example and no Government tests of GMO seed safety to date have been carried out. All tests are provided to the US Government on GMO safety or performance by the companies themselves such as Monsanto. Little wonder that GMO sounds to positive and that Monsanto and others can falsely claim GMO is the “solution to world hunger.”

In the United States a group of twenty four leading university corn insect scientists have written to the US Government Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding the EPA force a change to the company censorship practice. It is as if Chevrolet or Tata Motors or Fiat tried to censor comparative crash tests of their cars in Consumer Reports or a comparable consumer publication because they did not like the test results. Only this deals with the human and animal food chain. The scientists rightly argue to EPA that food safety and environment protection “depend on making plant products available to regular scientific scrutiny.” We should think twice before we eat that next box of American breakfast cereal if the corn used is GMO .

F. William Engdahl is author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. He may be contacted via his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

PORTLAND, Ore. — A new kind of identification tag that combines the security of a bar code with the capacity of an RFID tag will debut next week at the Siggraph 2009 conference.

The new tag, which can be read by consumers with a cellphone camera, looks like a 1-mm-high raised bump. Called a "bokode," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology invention consists of an illuminated microdot behind a plastic lens. It will use flat, reflective holograms in future versions.

MIT's bokode is named after the Japanese term "bokeh," which refers to the image of a round blob that results when a camera is out of focus. MIT researchers reversed that process by encoding the microdot's blob-like image based on the angles at which rays emerge from the lens--an encoding that allows the out-of-focus camera to recombine the rays into the original.

The data stored in a "bokode" chip can be detected meters away by an out-of-focus camera lens.

"The bokode encodes information in the angular dimension. Traditional bar codes encode information spatially, temporally or spectrally. The bokode encodes it angularly," said Ankit Mohan, a post-doctoral researcher at MIT. "This means the rays coming out of the bokode in different directions are all individually encoded. This angular information is invisible to the human eye, but is easily decodable by an out-of-focus camera."

MIT's prototype uses an LED beneath the microdot as well as a 3-mm-wide plastic lens atop it. However, the team is working on a holographic version that would use flat, fresnel-like lenses to encode angular information that does not require a backlight.

"Today, we use a printed mask of high resolution behind a lens to encode this information," said Mohan. "But we are also working on passive and flat prototypes using holography."

Credit cards are a prime candidate for the technology since bokodes, like RFID tags, can hold thousands of bits of information but can't be read unless they are scanned by a reader. MIT is also experimenting with other applications for bokode technology.

"In terms of commercial applications, we are actively exploring uses in augmented reality, motion capture and user interaction," said Mohan.

New devices based on the technology could be used for classroom presentations, business meetings, video games and motion-capture systems. For augmented reality, nutrition information stored by bokodes could be overlaid on products on store shelves.

Bokodes could also allow ultra-high-precision motion capture. For example, using them on body suits would reveal both the angle and the speed of joints, rather than just the speed detected by current motion-capture technology.

Funding for MIT's bokode research was provided by Nokia, Samsung and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

More than half of children taking the swine flu drug Tamiflu experience side-effects such as nausea and nightmares, research suggests.

An estimated 150,000 people with flu symptoms were prescribed the drug through a new hotline and website last week, according to figures revealed yesterday.

Studies of children attending three schools in London and one in the South West showed that 51-53 per cent had one or more side-effects from the medication, which is offered to everyone in England with swine flu symptoms.

The research by the Health Protection Agency emerged as Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that swine flu infections “may have reached a plateau”.

Releasing the latest figures, Sir Liam said that an estimated 110,000 new cases of the H1N1 virus were diagnosed by doctors in the week to Sunday. That did not include those using the new National Pandemic Flu Service for England to obtain antiviral drugs without seeing their GP.

Sir Liam said that the deaths of 27 people in England were confirmed to have been linked to swine flu, compared with 26 last week. As of Wednesday morning 793 people were in hospital in England with the virus, and 81 were in intensive care.

Yesterday Natasha Newman, 16, of Highgate, North London, was seriously ill in hospital in Athens after contracting swine flu while on holiday on the island of Cephalonia. Her parents, Julian Newman and Nikki Boughton, were at her bedside at the Agia Sofia children’s hospital, said a spokeswoman for Mr Newman’s business, J. Newman Textiles. “This is a very distressing and worrying time,” she said.

Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead expert on swine flu, suggested that Tamiflu was being overused and did not need to be offered to everyone with mild symptoms. “The National Pandemic Flu Service has been a great success, and was needed to take the pressure off GPs,” he said. “But the threshold for getting Tamiflu should be quite high.

“For patients who are not in the high-risk groups — such as pregnant women, people with bad asthma or with suppressed immune systems — this virus typically causes mild symptoms and does not require a course of Tamiflu. Patients in the at-risk groups should be referred to their GP, who will use their clinical judgment.”

A total of 103 children took part in the London study, of which 85 were given the drug as a precaution after a classmate received a diagnosis of swine flu. Of those, 45 experienced one or more side-effects. The most common was nausea (29 per cent), followed by stomach pain or cramps (20 per cent) and problems sleeping (12 per cent). Almost one in five had a “neuropsychiatric side-effect”, such as inability to think clearly, nightmares and “behaving strangely”, according to the research, published in Eurosurveillance, a journal of disease.

The study was carried out in April and May when the drug was being issued as a preventive measure. The findings were echoed by a study of children at a school in the South West where a pupil had caught the disease in Mexico.

Health officials in Japan have recommended against prescribing Tamiflu to teenagers over fears it causes a rise in “neuropsychiatric events”. The researchers said that clinical trials had shown that about 20 per cent of adults reported side-effects of either nausea or vomiting after taking Tamiflu.

Both the Department of Health and the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory products Agency said that the drug was safe, and that the benefits of treating early symptoms and avoiding potentially serious complications could outweigh the risks of side-effects.

Sir Liam said that despite a 10 per cent rise in the estimated number of cases in the week to Sunday, the latest figures reinforced “a growing impression we have had a peak”. He said that a surge would still be expected in the winter flu season, but added: “I think we are a little more confident we may be seeing a downturn in this flu.”

Scale of the outbreak

— 110,000 new swine flu cases in England last week, based on data from GPs

— 150,000 people obtaining Tamiflu without seeing a GP since last Thursday

— 51% to 53% proportion of children reporting side-effects from taking Tamiflu

— 1 in 158 people in England have contacted their GP with flu-like symptoms since outbreaks began. The rate is 1 in 77 for children aged 1 to 4

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and seven other U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo analyzed 2008 bonuses at nine banks that received Trouble Asset Relief Program financing from the U.S. government. New York-based Citigroup and Merrill, which has since been taken over by Bank of America Corp., received TARP funding totaling $55 billion, Cuomo said.

“When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well,” Cuomo’s office said in the 22-page report. “When the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well. Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished.”

The study, called “No Rhyme or Reason: The ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Bank Bonus Culture,” comes as Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission examine whether to limit the compensation paid to top corporate executives.

“One senior bank executive noted recently that individual compensation should not be set without taking into strong consideration the performance of the business unit and the overall firm,” according to the Cuomo report.

Upside, Downside

“As this executive put it, ‘employees should share in the upside when overall performance is strong and they should all share in the downside when overall performance is weak.” But despite such claims, one thing is clear from this investigation to date: there is no clear rhyme or reason to the way banks compensate and reward their employees,” the report said.

Wall Street firms’ pay has traditionally been tied closely to performance of the companies, which is why employees receive most of their compensation at the end of the year after final results are known. Depending on seniority and performance, bonuses for traders, bankers and executives can be a multiple of their salaries, which range from about $80,000 to $600,000.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. paid out a total of $18 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving a combined total of $45 billion in taxpayer dollars through TARP. Together, the three firms earned $9.6 billion last year, Cuomo said.

Top Recipients

The top 200 bonus recipients at JPMorgan Chase & Co. received $1.12 billion last year, while the top 200 at Goldman received $995 million. At Merrill the top 149 received $858 million and at Morgan Stanley, the top 101 received $577 million. Those 650 people received a combined $3.55 billion, or an average of $5.46 million.

JPMorgan Chase had 1,626 employees who received a bonus of least $1 million last year, more than any other Wall Street firm, according to the report. Goldman Sachs had 953 employees who received $1 million or more in bonuses, while Citigroup Inc. had 738, Merrill Lynch & Co., 696, and Morgan Stanley, 428. Bank of America Corp. had 172, while Wells Fargo & Co. had 62.

Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, Mark Lake, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley, Jeep Bryant, a spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, and Michael DuVally, a spokesman at Goldman Sachs, all in New York, declined to comment. Carolyn Cichon, a spokeswoman for State Street, and Citigroup spokesman Stephen Cohen didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

Pay for Performance

Melissa Murray, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, declined comment on the report itself. She said the company has a “pay- for-performance” culture where staff are compensated on individual and business performance. “We implemented a say on pay policy this year and our shareholders approved the compensation of the Company’s named executives,” she said.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch suffered losses of more than $27 billion at each firm, the report said. Yet Citigroup paid out $5.33 billion and Merrill $3.6 billion in bonuses.

“We have put forth guidelines to better link pay to long term performance and effective risk management,” said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Washington-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. “That includes the ability to recover bonuses from employees if those bonuses turn out later to be improper.” The industry association put out its guidelines in June and member firms are working to incorporate them, he said.

Wall Street Pay

The report shows the more bonus-laden compensation styles of the four major Wall Street banks compared with retail banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America that employ far more people whose main compensation is typically salaries.

At Wells Fargo, the fourth largest bank holding company after acquiring Wachovia Corp. last year, bonuses averaged $3,479 for the company’s 281,000 workers, according to the report.

Goldman produced the most in earnings per employee -- $77,228. In contrast, Merrill had the worst revenue performance, losing $467,797 per employee in 2008 while handing out an average bonus of $61,017, the third highest payout, the report said.

“The data that the attorney general has extracted is far more granular and detailed than anything that we might get from financial filings from these firms, so it’s extremely interesting in that respect,” said Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate for executive compensation at The Corporate Library in Portland, Maine. “The SEC may have a stronger platform to argue for disclosure of compensation for employees that earn in excess of a certain amount.”

TARP Pay-Back

Goldman and Morgan Stanley, credit-card lender American Express and custody banks State Street Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Northern Trust Corp. paid back a combined $30 billion in TARP funds on June 17, in a step toward eliminating government restrictions on lending and compensation. JPMorgan Chase paid back $25 billion.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee, led by Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, approved legislation two days ago that would let regulators ban incentive pay at banks and give shareholders a vote on bonuses in response to public outrage over Wall Street pay.

Egregious Behavior

The bill, which needs approval from the House and Senate, would allow banking agencies and the Securities and Exchange Commission to bar compensation practices that push financial companies to take “inappropriate risks.”

Frank said today in a telephone interview that the House tomorrow will consider his legislation to allow shareholders to hold an annual, non-binding vote on executive pay and require regulators to set pay restrictions that prevent excessive risk taking.

“Attorney General Cuomo’s report on executive pay at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts is shocking and appalling,” said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York. “Companies that only months ago were facing bankruptcy and sought the help of the Federal government are now paying out billions in compensation -- and in some cases without reimbursing taxpayers. This egregious behavior proves that Wall Street still doesn’t get that times have changed and the old way of paying executives is long gone.”

Part of Their Lives

Towns said in a letter to Cuomo that he would hold a hearing after the August recess to examine the Obama administration’s reforms in pay practices at companies that received TARP funds.

In October, industry veterans including John Gutfreund, president of New York-based Gutfreund & Co. and the former chief executive officer of Salomon Brothers Inc., said Wall Street would insist on paying bonuses in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a taxpayer bailout and mounting political outcry.

Odds that Wall Street will forgo the payouts are “slim to none,” Gutfreund said in October. “They’re going to have to be a little bit sensitive because politicians, whether they like it or not, are part of their lives now.”

The Day the President Turned Black (But has he turned back?) By Greg Palast Wednesday July 29, 2009 for The Huffington Post

He's in hot water now. For a moment, on national television, the President of the United States turned black!

Last week, when his buddy "Skip" Gates got busted for being Black in Boston, Barack Obama forgot his official role: to soothe America's conscience with the happy fairy tale that his election marked the end of racism in the USA.

Instead, Obama, the excruciatingly middle-of-the-road President, was seized by Barack the militant State Senator from the South Side of Chicago, who reminded us that cops bust Black guys for no goddamn good reason all the goddamn time.

I'm reminded that it was not so long ago that we watched the vicious gang-beating by Los Angeles cops of a defenseless, handcuffed, Rodney King, an African-American. King's beating was unusual only in that it was caught on videotape.

Yeah, I know: we've come a hell of a long way. Obama won, Jessie cried, Beyoncé has her own line of perfume and Tiger Woods plays where 30 years ago he couldn't eat lunch.

Good on them.

But what about Robert Pratt, Mr. President?

Pratt, a United Auto Workers member, has five kids and a mortgage payment of $1,100 a month on a house in Detroit worth no more than $40,000. The payment's astronomical because he pays 11% on his mortgage balance, double the national average interest rate. Now, on those crazy terms, he's sure to lose his house.

How did that happen? Pratt, whose story we've been tracking, was "steered" into a sub-prime loan by Countrywide Financial. "Steering" is the polite term for forcing folk into crappy loan terms. And not just any folk: Black folk, like Pratt. Over 60% of African-American mortgage applicants were (and ARE) steered into "sub-prime" predatory loans.

According to exhaustive studies by the Federal Reserve Board and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), African Americans are 250% more likely to get a loan with an "exploding interest" clause than white borrowers - and notably, the higher the income and the better the credit rating of a Black borrower, the more likely the discrimination.

As an economist, I can tell you it's not a stretch to say that Obama's failure to deal with endemic racism in the finance system is killing off hope of the nation's economic recovery. The "exploding rate" attack centered on Black and Hispanic communities has, according to the CLR, caused 40.2 million homes to lose value due to their proximity to foreclosed properties.

Yet, not a peep from the Obama Administration about ending this Ku Klux lending practice which has laid waste Black neighborhoods and taken a hunk of White America's housing values with it.

Instead, Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is the honored guest of the Board of Directors of JP Morgan, owner of one of the most outrageous of the financial predators, Washington Mutual. Morgan/WaMu, with its racially-poisoned mortgage trickery, makes the Cambridge Police Department look like the NAACP.

(Indeed, Emanuel's host JP Morgan was sued last week by the NAACP for "systematic, institutionalized racism in making home mortgage loans.")

The cold truth is, financial attacks on the Black community continue as freely under Obama as under Bush, despite Obama's power to halt it instantly by banning loan-sharking as a condition of continued bail-outs for these banks. Obama has directed the FDIC to guarantee JP Morgan loans, saving the bank $3.1 billion this year. Obama has directed the FDIC to guarantee Mr. Pratt, uh, "hope."

And what about Thomas Johnson, Mr. President?

Johnson's a minister in Florida who lost his vote in 2000, alongside at least 94,000 others falsely accused of being felons without the right to vote. Most of the innocents accused and abused were Black, the minister included. I know, because I saw those state records with the carefully recorded "BLA" next to the voters' names.

I had an editor on the story, won't say his name because he was so typical, who asked me why Johnson, an African-American, didn't pound the table and DEMAND his ballot. Johnson's no Harvard professor in Boston with the President's phone number on his speed dial.

My extremely white editor, a Yale graduate, sitting in San Francisco, could not imagine what would happen if a dark-skinned Rev. Johnson had started making a scene in Alachua County, in the Deep Deep South. The Reverend was smart not to pull a "Skippy Gates" and lip-off at authority: just a couple months ago, Alachua cops 'Tased' an angry, but unarmed, Black man, then shot him dead with seven bullets.

Johnson's vote loss, you might say, was "so 2000." This is post-racial 2009. Bullshit. In last year's election, Florida went right back into the racially biased block-and-purge of Black voters, barring thousands from the ballot through new ID laws that would have made Jim Crow segregationists of the Fifties proud. (See the investigative report, "Block the Vote," by myself and Bobby Kennedy, from the October 2008 Rolling Stone).

What I'm saying is that the venom of structural racism in America continues to sicken us all, in our economy, in our voting stations, in our schools (don't get me started), our health care system, our ... well, you name it.

Yes, I joined the Hope Parade and voted for Obama, expecting just this one change: a direct attack on the remaining areas of official sanction of racist policies and practices. I'm still waiting. It was quite inspiring, last Thursday, to the see a Black man appear, if momentarily, behind the Presidential seal. Unfortunately, Obama's swift demand for equal justice under the law was provoked only when the whip came down on someone, like himself, whose professional and class status had, they presumed, made them exempt from the daily insults and assaults visited on their less privileged brothers.

So much was made of Gates' Harvard post that the issue seemed to be It's not right to cuff a dark-skinned man who's a HARVARD PROFESSOR." The race-neutral rules of class privilege had been violated.

What's missing in America - and in the Oval Office - is any hint of outrage at the endemic, systemic cruelties visited on Black Americans, like Pratt and Johnson, who lack a key to the Harvard Alumni Club.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Chicago Police Department is considering a major change in policy regarding the use of deadly force.

The department is looking at allowing police officers to fire their guns under circumstances where they previously could not.

The new policy, from police Supt. Jody Weis and confirmed by WBBM Newsradio 780 Wednesday morning, would allow police officers to shoot at fleeing vehicles if the driver or passengers are suspected of committing a felony.

Earlier today, a police spokesman told Newsradio 780 that the policy would take effect on Monday.

"Now officers will be able to fire upon the driver or passenger in a vehicle if that person is a forcible fleeing felon, someone who has committed a very serious offense resulting in bodily harm or has threatened to commit great bodily harm," Drew told Newsradio 780.

The old policy allowed officers only to shoot at vehicles that pose a threat to them or others, such as if the driver were trying to run down the officer.

Later Wednesday, the department issued a statement saying the plan was under review.

The department is "currently reviewing the existing order [to] provide officers with more clear direction. The review process is ongoing and will not be rushed."

A Central Intelligence Agency employee who died on a trail near Palm Springs was identified Saturday as a 64-year-old Fort Collins, Colo., resident.

Robert Allen Liebler was found dead on a trail about 100 feet west of West Arenas Road and South Tahquitz Drive about 11 a.m. Sunday amid 100-degree-plus heat, according to a coroner's spokesman.

Liebler was a Colorado State University professor and CIA communications expert, who had been working in the Palm Springs area, the Desert Sun reported.

Liebler, who had a doctorate from the University of Michigan, specialized in discrete mathematics and did security work for the U.S. government, a friend and former colleague, Ben Manvel, told the newspaper.

Liebler worked for the "brains branch" of the CIA, developing secret codes for stealth communication, he said.

Liebler, reported missing Saturday, was in Palm Springs working with a local think tank, Manvel said. He began his hike up the Carl Lykken Trail with a friend about 3:45 a.m. Saturday. About three hours later, he told the friend he was cramping up and headed back.

Liebler and his hiking partner were going to meet a group of about 15 other people who had taken the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up to the top of Mount San Jacinto, according to police.

Liebler's body was found about 75 feet off the nearest trail.

Another body was found along a trail in a same general vicinity about two hours earlier, but that man's has not been made public. His decomposing body was found west of Museum Drive and north of Belardo Road.

Though coroner's investigators think they know who he is, they have been unable to positively identify him yet through dental records or fingerprints.

"The state of the remains don't allow identification by photos," a deputy coroner said. "We're identifying him by other means."

In the past six months, four bodies have been recovered from the shadeless terrain above Palm Springs.

Jack M Shaw, a veteran New Jersey political consultant who was recently busted during the huge corruption sweep last week, was reportedly found dead in his Jersey City apartment on Tuesday, the same day that one of the three mayors charged in the case had resigned.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Mr.Shaw are “suspicious”, said Edward DeFazio, the Hudson county prosecutor. He also said that the death did not apparently seemed to be a homicide. “It could be natural, it could be accidental, it could be suicide,” said Mr.DeFazio, resenting to comment more on the issue revolving around the mysterious death of Shaw. According to the inside sources, an autopsy is supposed to be carried out on Wednesday.

Shaw’s death which was reported by a companion to the authorities at 5.17 p.m., came hours after Dennis Elwell, the mayor of Secaucus stepped down from his post after being charged in the sprawling political corruption case.

61 year old Shaw was once a consultant of some quite influential Democrats, more recently worked mainly for developers doing business in Hudson County. One of the top clients of Shaw was Metrovest Equities, the developer of the Beacon, a 10 storeyed building apartment complex on the site of the former Jersey City Medical Center. Shaw was charged last week for allegedly accepting $10,000 cash from Solomon Dwek, the federal informant at the center of the corruption scandal who was posing as a real estate developer looking for political help in order to pass his projects.

The death of Mr.Shaw has drawn in many speculations although the Hudson County prosecutor Mr.DeFazio has dismissed any possibilities of homicide. Recent developments suggests that only after the autopsy report, the investigators can actually come up with a detailed report regarding Mr.Shaw’s demise.

Larry Franklin, the former Pentagon analyst convicted of revealing classified information, says he worked undercover as an FBI double agent to gather information on the pro-Israel lobby in the United States before the bureau turned on him and pressured him to plead guilty to spying for Israel.

Talking to a U.S. newspaper for the first time since his arrest five years ago, Franklin told The Washington Times that he wore a portable recording device for the FBI to capture conversations between Keith Weissman, a lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Israeli Embassy official Naor Gilon and that he cooperated on other matters during a 10-week period in 2004.

He said he never sought to spy for Israel and felt betrayed when the same FBI agents whom he had assisted suddenly told him to get an attorney and threatened to send him to prison for disclosing classified information to AIPAC officials and the Israeli Embassy.

"I cooperated without a lawyer because I thought we were on the same side," Franklin said in a wide-ranging interview with The Times last week at the office of his attorney, Plato Cacheris. "And I was dumbfounded. I had no money, I told them, for a lawyer. They assigned me a lawyer who was paid by the government who wanted me to sign something that was anathema to me, an abomination."

FBI Assistant Director John Miller declined to comment on the case or Franklin's cooperation.

Franklin eventually pleaded guilty to releasing classified information on Iraq and Iran and was sentenced in 2006 to nearly 13 years in prison. A federal judge reduced the sentence to probation and spared him from having to spend any time in prison after considering his cooperation with the FBI and the Justice Department.

Franklin had been a top Pentagon analyst on Iran during the early days of the George W. Bush administration and acknowledged he was talking to the news media and AIPAC officials because he was concerned about the administration's plan to go to war with Iraq without a policy for containing Iran.

Franklin said the FBI first pressed him about working undercover in an investigation into alleged Israeli spying in the United States in May 2004, after he had become a subject of investigation into whether he provided sensitive information to reporters at CBS News on Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi's relations with Iran.

He said his FBI handlers convinced him that AIPAC analysts Steven Rosen and Mr. Weissman were "bad people" and that the agency needed his help in making a criminal case against the pro-Israel lobby officials. The two AIPAC officials were eventually indicted, but this spring -- after years of legal wrangling -- the government reversed course and dropped all charges against them.

Venezuela is withdrawing its ambassador from neighbouring Colombia and freezing relations, following a dispute over weapons supplied to Colombian rebels.

President Hugo Chavez, who announced the move on Venezuelan TV, also said he was halting trade deals with Colombia.

The announcement came a day after the Colombia government said weapons bought by Venezuela from Sweden in the 1980s had ended up with Colombian guerrillas.

Mr Chavez denied this and accused Colombia of acting "irresponsibly".

"I've ordered to withdraw our ambassador from Bogota," the Venezuelan leader said on Tuesday. "We will freeze relations with Colombia," he added.

As well as a diplomatic freeze, Mr Chavez warned trade relations would also be frozen and raised the possibility of expropriating Colombian companies.

Venezuela, he said, would also substitute imports from Colombia - which currently account for about a third of the country's trade - with goods from other countries, notably Brazil and Ecuador.

Bilateral trade between the two countries was set to run to some $5bn (£3bn) this year, according to the Venezuelan-Colombian Chamber of Economic Integration (Cavecol).

Cavecol has appealed to both governments to conduct a "frank and sincere" dialogue and to maintain not only commercial but also "diplomatic, political and social ties," the Spanish news agency Efe reported.

'Israel of Latin America'

On Monday, the Colombian government said its troops had recovered Swedish anti-tank weapons in a raid on a camp run by the Marxist rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc.

And at the weekend, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the Farc had obtained rocket-launchers on international arms markets.

Colombia : Social and political organizations in Colombia called the people to gather on Tuesday to protest US military presence and defend national sovereignty.

According to the call on Monday, the decision by President Alvaro Uribe to allow the presence of US Army troops in several spots of the Colombian territory, in line with a military pact negotiated with Washington, rides roughshod over Colombia's independence and sovereignty.

Similarly, a call for debate was made by members of the Polo Democratico Alternativo Party at a plenary of the Senate of the Republic, presided over by Senator Gloria Ines Ramirez.

The wave of protest has been joined by members of the executive direction of the Unitary Workers Union (CUT), which demanded that the government respects national sovereignty by closing US bases in Colombian territory.

The CUT said Uribe's decision is against the so-far persued peace paths, thus contributing to worsen internal conflict and trigger external frictions.

These bases granted gracefully by the Uribe regimen to the United States, behind the nation and Congress' backs, add to the more than 700 such bases the United States has around the world, the workers central said in a communique.

Basing foreign troops in Colombia is banned under the Constitution, which only allows transit on prior authorization by Congress and the State Council, the text recalled.

Colombian Communist Party General Secretary Jaime Caicedo said the United States has become a fundamental factor in the continuity of war in the country and regional destabilization.

Citigroup (C) is considering paying a $100 million bonus -- to one guy.

This is the same Citigroup that received $45 billion in bailout money. The same Citigroup that will soon be 34% owned by the U.S. government. The same Citigroup that has lost 95% of its share value since 2007.

Citigroup is in no position to be awarding bonuses of $10 million -- let alone adding another zero to that amount. So why is it mulling such a colossally dumb move? Because the guy demanding it is probably the bank's most valuable employee.

Enter Andrew Hall. He's a rock star, a legend among banking circles. He makes a boatload of money for Citigroup as head of Phibro, the bank's energy-trading unit. The Wall Street Journal calls Phibro a secretive operation, housed in a former Connecticut dairy farm, that "occasionally accounts for a disproportionate chunk of Citigroup income."

Phibro made so much money for Citigroup last year that Hall got a $100 million bonus (His bonus is based on Phibro's profits). Phibro was the main source of the $667 million in pretax revenue Citigroup received in commodities trading, the Journal reported. And the unit is doing so well this year that Hall may be in line for a similar amount.

Even though it's only July, it sounds like Hall is pressing Citigroup for confirmation of the bonus. He's threatening to leave the company, reports say.

So here's Citigroup's dilemma: Keeping Hall would likely help the company climb out of the hole it's in. But can it afford to spend $100 million?

And will the U.S. government allow it? That will depend largely on the opinion of Kenneth Feinberg, the new pay czar appointed to oversee compensation at the bailed-out banks.

Hall already has so much money that he owns a castle in Germany called Schloss Derneburg (pictured here). He's a huge art collector, and caused a bit of a ruckus in Southport, Conn., by commissioning a six-ton, 80-foot-long sculpture of concrete and steel on his front lawn. That doesn't play well with Southporters.

It is Official: WHO Recommends Mandatory Injections to Almost Two Hundred Countries Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by: Barbara Minton, Natural Health Editor

(NaturalNews) Executives from Baxter, Novartis, Glaxo-Smith Kline, and Sanofi Pasteur have seats at the advisory group that on July 13th recommended mandatory H1N1 vaccination of everyone in all 194 countries that belong to the World Health Organization (WHO), according to a report just issued by journalist Jane Burgermeister. WHO spokesperson Alphaluck Bhatiasevi confirmed that Dr. Margaret Chan did not give the press briefing at WHO headquarters in Geneva as anticipated. At short notice, Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny stepped in to announce that "vaccines will be needed in all countries."

According to WHO documents, vaccines "such as those that are formulated with oil-in-water adjuvants and live attenuated influenza vaccines are important." Health workers, pregnant women, healthy young adults of 15 to 49 years, and healthy children will be the targeted groups of the world wide vaccine effort.

"All countries should immunize their health-care workers as a first priority to protect the essential health infrastructure. As vaccines available initially will not be sufficient, a step-wise approach to vaccinate particular groups may be considered," according to Paule-Kieny. The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunisation established by the Director-General of the WHO in 1999, suggested the following groups for consideration, noting that countries need to determine their order of priority based on country-specific conditions: pregnant women; children over the age of 6 months with one of several chronic medical conditions; healthy young adults of 15 to 49 years of age; healthy children; healthy adults of 50 to 64 years of age; and healthy adults of 65 years of age and above.

In view of the anticipated limited vaccine availability at global levels and the potential need to protect against "drifted" strains of virus, SAGE recommended that promoting production and use of vaccines such as those that are formulated with oil-in water adjuvants and live attenuated influenza vaccines was important.

WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan endorsed the above recommendations on July 11,2009 acknowledging that they were well adapted to the current pandemic situation. She also noted that the recommendations will need to be changed if and when new evidence becomes available.

Three-stage vaccinations may create perfect cytokine storm

The vaccine is to be given by a series of three injections. Speaking on the Republic Broadcasting Network with Dr. Rebecca Carley as host on July 11th, meta-analyst and vaccine researcher Patrick Jordan reported belief that the first injection will be for the purpose of turning off the victim's immune system. The second injection will be for the purpose of loading people with deadly organisms. And the third injection will be to turn the immune system back on for the purpose of creating a cytokine storm that will deal a lethal blow to the body.

In his chronicle of the connection between vaccines and death, Jordan pointed out that in 1915 the pertussis vaccine became available and was widely given. This bacterial poison from whopping cough, called pertussis coxon, so depresses the immune system that it is used in laboratories today to turn off nutrafils and reduce white blood cell counts. Then, in 1918, soldiers who had received the pertussis vaccine were deployed to Europe, where they were given another unknown vaccine. They were then exposed to a Lucite gas, which is an arsenic compound, and phosgenegas, a chlorine compound. As a result, their immune systems kicked in with a cytokine storm that killed many of the otherwise healthy young men. This is the 1,2,3 punch Jordan is warning will come again with the "swine flu" vaccinations.

We have been conditioned to think of external microbes as our enemy during a time of influenza. But our own immune systems are potentially more lethal. When the body detects foreign microorganisms indicating an infection, it can respond by overprotecting the site of that infection. In its hurry to get antibodies to the infection site, the body may dispatch so many that the level of cytokines becomes highly elevated, creating a cytokine storm that can be fatal. For example, during a lung infection, a cytokine storm can potentially block airways and result in suffocation. (What is a Cytokine Storm, www.wisegeek.com)

Jordan continued by painting a picture outlined in the WHO Memorandum Number 1 with a study that found virus infections make antibody and antigen complexes. These complexes can clog blood vessels or implant tissue, making the body eventually attack itself. The main focus of this study was kidney disease. Animals with induced immune system deficiency were infected with lethal virus until every single cell in their bodies reflected the disease. But for a time these animals ran around like there was nothing wrong with them because their immune system was so depressed that it was making no effort to fight the disease, and there was no immune response. The WHO experimenters then took their lab animals and stimulated the cell-mediated immune response, and the animals died immediately from their bodies attacking themselves in the kind of cytokine storm associated with the 1918 Spanish flu.

Even if this described scenario does not develop, Jordan points out that the current "swine flu" vaccine is made with an adjuvant that may contain a material poison, salmonella, or typhoid fever toxin, along with squalene. Although not known with certainty, the second round of injections given to the soldiers in 1918 is believed to have contained typhus. Squalene produces auto-immunity and eventually death in everyone who takes it.

The records dating back to soviet times were compiled by a special navy group collecting reports of unexplained incidents delivered by submarines and military ships. The group was headed by deputy Navy commander Admiral Nikolay Smirnov, and the documents reveal numerous cases of possible UFO encounters, the website says.

Vladimir Azhazha, former navy officer and a famous Russian UFO researcher, says the materials are of great value.

“Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more – with lakes. So UFOs tend to stick to the water,” he said.

On one occasion a nuclear submarine, which was on a combat mission in the Pacific Ocean, detected six unknown objects. After the crew failed to leave behind their pursuers by maneuvering, the captain ordered to surface. The objects followed suit, took to the air, and flew away.

Many mysterious events happened in the region of Bermuda Triangle, recalls retired submarine commander Rear Admiral Yury Beketov. Instruments malfunctioned with no apparent reason or detected strong interference. The former navy officer says this could be deliberate disruption by UFOs.

“On several occasions the instruments gave reading of material objects moving at incredible speed. Calculations showed speeds of about 230 knots, of 400 kph. Speeding so fast is a challenge even on the surface. But water resistance is much higher. It was like the objects defied the laws of physics. There’s only one explanation: the creatures who built them far surpass us in development,” Beketov said.

Navy intelligence veteran, Captain 1st rank Igor Barklay comments:

“Ocean UFOs often show up wherever our or NATO’s fleets concentrate. Near Bahamas, Bermudas, Puerto Rico. They are most often seen in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the southern part of the Bermuda Triangle, and also in the Caribbean Sea.”

Another place where people often report UFO encounters is Russia’s Lake Baikal, the deepest fresh water body in the world. Fishermen tell of powerful lights coming from the deep and objects flying up from the water.

In one case in 1982 a group of military divers training at Baikal spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silvery suits. The encounter happened at a depth of 50 meters, and the divers tried to catch the strangers. Three of the seven men died, while four others were severely injured.

“I think about underwater bases and say: why not? Nothing should be discarded,” says Vladimir Azhazha. “Skepticism is the easiest way: believe nothing, do nothing. People rarely visit great depths. So it’s very important to analyze what they encounter there.”

Meanwhile Russian Navy officials have denied the collection of UFO-related encounters exists. A source in the Navy’s service staff said the story may have its roots in the reports of vessel commanders, which describe locating objects of unclear but Earthly origin.

“An illusion of a UFO encounter can result from large fish shoals, floating garbage or natural phenomena,” ITAR-TASS news agency cites the source.

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